Madrid

Hi Year 2,

I am just finishing up 2 full days of seeing the beautiful city of Madrid.

The weather, shops and buildings here are amazing.

I'll try not to bore you with too many photos - there's not many of me as I am travelling by myself - I managed a couple of selfies though (haha) just to mix it up!

Tomorrow I am off to Barcelona - can't wait.

Enjoy your last 2 days at school before the holidays.

Here are some of the photos I have taken of beautiful Madrid ...

The stadium for Real Madrid. They have 70 000 season ticket holders - that's a lot!! The stadium can hold up to something like 110 000 people but for safety they limit it to 80 000 people seated.

A selfie attempt in front of the Reina Sofia - an art museum. I'm not usually an arty person but thoroughly enjoyed my visit there. I even got some ideas for Art next term :)

This is the Plaza De Cibeles - the central square where Real Madrid celebrates it's wins. You can also see the magnificent building behind it - that is the Palacio De Cibeles.

Another selfie - this time in font of the Athocha Renfe (Madrid's main train station) - I will be back here tomorrow to catch a train to Barcelona.

The Catedral De La Almudena - HUGE Cathedral - it was amazing inside!!

Palacio Real - Madrid's massive palace!! View from the back of it in the gorgeous gardens.

This is the courtyard behind the palace - took this photo from up on the balcony of the Cathedral next door.

Panoramic view of Madrid from the Cathedral balcony.

Riding the "Hop on, Hop off" bus!!

Side view of the palace!

Beautiful gardens and parks like this are all the way through Madrid!!

Templo DeBod - a 2nd Century BC Egyptian Temple - was also very cool inside!!

The view from the lookout near the Templo Debod ... you can see palace and Cathedral!!

From Miss Seymour

Miss Seymour in Madrid

Hi Year 2,

I arrived in Madrid today. It is only a short 55 minute flight from Valencia. 

I spent most of the day FaceTiming my sister (Hayley) and my Dad, catching up on some washing (so I have some clean clothes to wear) and I took a long time trying to find a Post Office to send my hockey things home as I don't need them anymore. As my Spanish is not very good, it took a very long time to find the Post Office first of all!! And then when I did find it ... no one there spoke any English. I eventually understood (with help from a kind lady behind me who could speak a bit of English) that I had to go to a supermarket and buy a roll of glad wrap to wrap the bag in before I could send it. Then I couldn't find any glad wrap in the supermarket!! When I eventually gave up and left the store, I saw that they had a separate supermarket section next door for "cleaning and kitchen" products! It was very difficult trying to understand what the lady at the post office was saying, so I am hoping that my bag gets home eventually! Fingers crossed!!

I went and found a nice little Thai restaurant for lunch. This was my view - thought it was a cute building :)

For those soccer fans in 2W ... I am staying right near the Real Madrid Official Store.

I had amazing pizza for dinner!

And listened to some really cool traditional Spanish music from a group of men wearing large black sombreros (big hats) ...

And I thought this statue was pretty cool so took a photo to show you. Couldn't read the Spanish sign so don't really know what it is supposed to be.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring!!

Time for some sleep now.

From Miss Seymour

Some highlights videos from Valenica

Hi Year 2,

Here are some websites you can go to that contain the highlights of some of my last few games - you might be lucky to see me a few times :) I am wearing a yellow shirt in most of the games.

Quarter Final - Argentina vs. USA - http://www.fih.ch/events/hockey-world-league/hockey-world-league-semi-final-valencia-2015-w/pools-matches/matches/7035/?matchId=7035

Semi Final - GB vs. Germany - http://www.fih.ch/events/hockey-world-league/hockey-world-league-semi-final-valencia-2015-w/pools-matches/matches/7040/?matchId=7040

5th vs. 6th USA vs. Spain - http://www.fih.ch/events/hockey-world-league/hockey-world-league-semi-final-valencia-2015-w/pools-matches/matches/7043/?matchid=7043

You probably wouldn't want to, but just in case you have some spare time and you are interested, the full games are all uploaded at www.starsports.com - if you go to 'Hockey' and look for the replays from Valencia, you can scroll through the games to find the ones I did.

From Miss Seymour

World League Round 3 is finished

Hi Year 2,

Wow what a whirl wind finish to the tournament.

I am sorry I haven't written a post in a while but I have been super dooper busy.

Here are some of the things I have been up to:

Coming back from dinner one night. At the back - Karen and Kelly from NZ and Mariana from Argentina. Across the from - Ayanna, Amy, me and Hannah.

On the bus for our tour on the one of the rest days. We went on a walking tour through the "old Valencia".

This is our group on the walking tour. This wall used to be the main gate of the city - it was a Christian wall to protect the city. Most of it was knocked down but this gate is left.

Did you know that Valencia gets more than 300 days of sun per year - how cool is that!

Inside one of the markets.

Yummmmm - look at all the cheese at the markets!! You know I love cheese :)

I took this picture from the balcony of the Town Hall in Valencia. A new mayor had been voted in 2 days earlier and he had opened it up for visitors for the first time in 24 years. It was packed and all the locals thought it is was very special to be up there.

Here is Emi saying hello to you guys. I have a video of her saying "Hello 2W" but I will have to find it and upload it or show you when I get back.

After our walking tour, a few of us went to the Bullring. While I don't agree at all with Bull fighting, the experience of going into the Bullring and learning about the very famous Spanish tradition was extremely interesting!!

That is me with a fake bull (in case you thought it was real).

There was a museum next to the bullring that we visited - this is a mini model of what the whole bullring looks like.

Then we got to go out onto the bullring. There wasn't many people around so we had the place to ourselves!!

This is the gate that the bulls come out.

Here Emi is pretending to be a bull...

Emi and Cheiko are hiding behind a wall in the bullring where the bull fighters hide behind because the bulls can't fit - you can see all the marks on the front where the bull runs into it.

We took this photo inside the bullring using Ayanna's selfie stick.

We then treated ourselves to ice cream. I had mango and chocolate ... mmmm yum!!

Here is a photo of most of the umpires after the tour.

The umpires bought me these candles and stuck them in pieces of banana as I was very lucky to celebrate my 50th international game on the semi final day.

Kelly, Hannah and I on the last night in Valencia!!

Karen, Emi and I were pretending to be rabbits because we had just found out that we had eaten rabbit for dinner one night :O 

This is Mariana and I with the captain of China and captain of Great Britain before one of the round games.

This is Caroline and I with the captains from the USA and Spain on the last match day.

I can't believe you only have 4 days left of school before the holidays!!! Get lots of learning in :)

From Miss Seymour

Rest Day in Valencia

Hello 2W,

I got an email from Miss Stroligo earlier saying that you had watched my videos - hope you could see me!!

Yesterday I had 2 games where I was the reserve umpire which means that I sat on the bench and was the 'spare' umpire in case one of the umpires get hurt. I also got to walk the water bottles out at half time haha - I did a good job of that :)

Today was a rest day - yippee!! We had a meeting this morning for the "Shoot Outs" and then the rest of the day was free for us to do what we wanted. I went and visited a friend in a different hotel with my roommate, Hannah (who is in the photo below), and spent the rest of the morning sitting by their roof top pool reading my book - it was just lovely. We then went back down to the beach for lunch. I had the paella again - this time it had rabbit in it as well as seafood ... but they didn't tell me it was rabbit until I had eaten it ... hahaha yuck!!

We took a walk along the beach and got wet as a storm came in as we were walking along the boardwalk. And then we had ice cream for desert!! Yum!!

This afternoon, all the umpires had a table tennis tournament out in the park. It rained again ... and we got wet again ... so we moved the tournament inside the hotel in the corridor. Great fun.

Hannah and I are now getting an early night. I umpire at 1pm tomorrow with Mariana from Argentina - it will be Great Britain vs. China. I am looking forward to it - it is the last round game before we hit the quarter finals.

I have put some more photos for you at the bottom of this post - enjoy.

Thank you for your email Caitlin - it was so special to receive it from you and Imogen :)

Bye for now.

From Miss Seymour

A photo from my first game - Great Britain vs. Spain

Eating a chocolate ice cream today by the beach :)

This is Hannah (my roomie) and I in our second game - the Irish captain is in green and the German captain is in the white top.

Here is a picture I took of one of the games so you could see what the pitch looked like.

This is at the beginning of one of the games when the teams line up for their national anthems.

The view from the roof top pool today. 

I took this photo as I was walking along the boardwalk to the beach - I turned around to take a photo of the restaurant where we had lunch.

This photo is of walking along the boardwalk again but facing the beach. You can see the little umbrellas and the water behind it.

The ferris wheel next to the beach.

Our table tennis competition in the park. KB from New Zealand is playing Mariana from Argentina.

When it started raining we had to go back inside and we played a mini game on small table in the hallway of the hotel.